Between Antiquity and the Exotic: the forgotten comparative project of the Museum des Antiques of the Year III

The short-lived « Muséum des Antiques » (an III - 1795) under the Revolution collected objects of an ethnographic nature from revolutionary confiscations in France and in Europe, assimilating them to the collections of the Museum of Natural History. By displaying ancient objects from the Cabinet des Medailles next to such exotica, the goal was deliberately comparative. This article aims to establish a chronology of this unknown museum of the National Convention and to identity the comparative program between the Ancient and the Exotic.